It’s a typical beautiful day here in Southern California, where my office is, which is great considering the heat we experienced last weekend, but as Bill Murphy said, “it’s a good opportunity to go inside and work!” J

I am currently reviewing the sales results from our Blitz in California. For those who do not know what a Sales Blitz is I’ll explain. It’s similar to the Military blitz tactic, we get as many people from Clos LaChance to “blitz” the market with our excellent wholesaler/distributor, Regal Wine Company, sales representatives. This year we did 2 days in Northern California and 2 days in Southern California. We had great CLC staff, including Stephen, the winemaker and Bill, Founder and CEO, lot’s of star power there! Dominic Tufo from Hospitality, Kristin Murphy, daughter and Director of CK Vines/Events, and Colleen Mahoney from sales and marketing rounded out the teams . We ended up selling 166 cases in 4 days. Not bad! It’s a grueling 4 days involving lots of travel, sitting in traffic and it’s usually 12 hour days, but all in all very successful. We always have a contest between us as to who can sell the most…this year the teams were all close, but the big award went to Bill! Congrats!

Now for me it’s off to the airport. I’m responsible for sales in the Western United States so I cover about 12 states. I’m on the road at least 1 week a month but usually not a consecutive week. Today’s trip is to San Francisco. Tonight I have a sales presentation to the Food and Beverage Director at the Hyatt and a tasting presentation to one of the hipper SF restaurants….hopefully both will like the wines and add us to their lists! Tomorrow will be a meeting with the San Francisco Sales team of Regal Wine CO, our excellent wholesaler, and a tasting presentation to them of our highly anticipated Estate Cabernet, Syrah Rhone Blend and Meritage. They are a really good team with a difficult but fun area to sell wine. San Francisco is tough because they are so close to the wine country and there are a lot of restaurants where every winery wants to be on the list, but they do a good job for us. After we go through the new wines and other priorities I’ll make a few sales calls on restaurants, hotels and retail stores in the area. I’ll finish the day with a dinner meeting with an account and hopefully have an opportunity to visit with my daughter, Kiersten, who is a student at SFU. What a great way to make a living huh?!!